As Richard Sandomir reported two days ago, Clemson’s 37-17 victory over Oklahoma in the Bowl, which started at 4 p.m. Eastern, was seen by an average of 15.6 million viewers, a 45% decrease from the 28.2 million for the 2015 Rose Bowl, the semifinal game played in the comparable time slot on Jan. 1. The second semifinal, Alabama’s 38-0 rout of Michigan State, averaged almost 18.6 million viewers in prime time, down 34% from the nearly 28.3 million for the Sugar Bowl last season.

owned paid $7.3 billion over 12 years for the rights to the new championship game and the six bowl games that take turns hosting the two semifinals—an average annual cost of $608 million. The suits there are trying to justify the crappy ratings by pointed to strong tune-in for its games on the Watch ESPN app, as Thursday’s semifinals added 313,000 average minute impressions to the TV audience, had 1.12 million unique viewers and more than 67 million minutes watched. Compared to last year’s New Year’s Day semifinals, this was up 67%, 29% and 58%, respectively.

I am not buying it and I don't think Wall Street will either, regardless of what the ratings for the January 11 championship game between Alabama and Clemson are. People don't care about watching college football on the biggest amateur party night during the year. ESPN knew that and tried to make up for it by shoving Ryan Seacrest and ABC's coverage of New Year's down our throat during ESPN's football telecasts. It made me sick. And a lot of other people: the prime time audience for “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve Seacrest” on ABC fell 23.4%, to 9.8 million viewers.

ESPN tried to get both audiences and got neither. Look for Wall Street to beat up Mickey Mouse next week.